The $3,000 fat-removal surgery trending on TikTok

A common, quick and relatively noninvasive cosmetic procedure is causing speculation to swirl online about celebrities and who may have undergone it.

A common, quick and relatively noninvasive cosmetic procedure is causing speculation to swirl online about celebrities and who may have undergone it.

For anyone in the market, there are numerous ways to get a new face - not just Botox, facelifts and nose jobs, but injectable fillers, thread lifts and adhesive tape, among others. Now, yet another face-altering procedure is stirring attention online: buccal fat removal.

Pronounced like “buckle,” buccal fat removal is a cosmetic surgery that extracts fat from the cheeks, giving patients the appearance of dramatic cheekbones and a thinner face. Photos of celebrities with exaggerated hollow cheeks have caused speculation to swirl on social media about who has undergone the surgery. Meanwhile, people on TikTok are posting warnings, jokes and updates about their own buccal surgeries.

To remove the buccal fat pad - the part of the cheek that rounds out the face and makes it look full - a surgeon eases it out by cutting open the cheek from the inside. The size of the fat pad depends on the person and how much they want removed, but what’s left afterward is the ultra-contoured, cheekbone-popping effect popularized by celebrities and models.

Because the procedure is relatively noninvasive and takes less than an hour to perform, buccal fat removal has become a popular choice for patients. Recovery runs about a week, during which the stitches dissolve and swelling reduces, and surgeons say patients should be left with minimal or no scarring. The cost of the procedure runs from roughly $2,500 to $5,000.

While much of the conversation about celebrities is conjecture, Chrissy Teigen, the model and celebrity cookbook writer, posted about her own procedure on Instagram last fall. In the video, she pressed her fingers to her cheeks to display her newly defined cheekbones.

“Since I quit drinking, I’m really seeing the results, and I like it,” she said in her post. (Ms. Teigen marked one year of sobriety in July.) A spokesperson for Ms. Teigen did not respond to requests for comment.

Buccal fat removal became a trending topic online last week after “Glee” star and Broadway actress Lea Michele posted a selfie on Instagram in which her cheeks looked unusually pronounced and hollow, leading to speculation among people on social media about whether she had undergone surgery. A person close to Ms. Michele said in an email that the actress had not had buccal fat removal. Soon, the questioning turned to other celebrities with sharp facial features.

Though the procedure itself is several decades old, surgeons said they’ve seen an uptick in requests in the last few years. Tijion Esho, a plastic surgeon based in London and founder of the Esho Clinic, said his patients started bringing in photos of model Bella Hadid about five years ago to show him how they wanted their sunken cheeks to look.

He said he saw a similar effect after Kylie Jenner revealed she had lip fillers in 2015, leading to a wave of patients asking him for the same injection.

“The power of celebrity or influencer culture in terms of surgery is huge, and you can see direct correlation with procedures being sought when they’re in the public eye,” he said.

Nowhere is this clearer than on TikTok, where patients and surgeons are posting candid (and sometimes graphic) videos about buccal fat removal.

Chey McFadden, a 28-year-old car dealership training and operations manager based in Phoenix, Ariz., said she took the leap last September after debating whether to undergo the procedure for about a year. After about $3,000 and around two weeks of recovery, she was thrilled by her subtly sharper cheekbones.

“It looked different, but different was what I wanted,” Ms. McFadden said. Potential short-term effects of the surgery include bleeding or infection, and if done poorly, surgeons said, the procedure can lead to nerve damage in the mouth or cheeks.

The long-term effects could also be potentially counterintuitive. Because the buccal pad naturally shrinks with age, whatever fat remains in the face can help maintain a youthful appearance. Removing it can lead to a gaunt, hollow look as the person ages, surgeons said, though there isn’t a lot of long-term research on the procedure.

“We hate our full faces when we’re younger, but we really want them back when we get older,” said Gregory A. Greco, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

Ms. McFadden and others on TikTok said they aren’t concerned about looking like they’ve aged too quickly. It’s partially for this reason that they said they chose to post about their experiences with the surgery, wanting to provide an honest testimonial to inform viewers’ decisions and combat the stigma of talking about cosmetic procedures.

“What is missing is that for many people, there’s something to be gained, too,” Ms. McFadden said. “The more we talk about the risks and the pros of it, the more informed we can all be.” According to surgeons, the procedure is somewhat reversible. Fat can be inserted into the face, but after a buccal pad removal, the cheeks will never quite look the same as they did before.

Some patients may consider other options such as adding cheekbone and jawline fillers (which emulate the scooped-cheek effect), or a change in diet and exercise. Those who decide to go under the knife should only seek out board-certified plastic surgeons.

“I think everybody has to just do their homework,” Dr. Greco said. “Social media is a wonderful resource for all of us, as long as everybody understands that these are procedures that can do harm.” “I always advise patients not to do treatments because of trends, because it’s an ever-changing landscape,” Dr. Esho said. “The next minute, baby face is going to be in fashion, the next minute a sculpted face is going to be in fashion.”